HouseTrip

worst rental agency ever

Housetrip had the highest fees (much higher than AirBnB, Roomorama...) and if ever a problem occurs, they will NEVER help you. they will keep your fees and beg the owner to refund you (but not the fees).

I made a double booking because their website was not informative enough and they said it was my fault and they wouldn't anything.

Avoid at all cost !

Amazon

I'm sorry to say that but Amazon is unbeatable.

I'm sorry to say that because I love real bookshops. small and specialized where you can get great pieces of advice but...

Amazon has everything you want, usually at a great price (remember it's also a second-hand book... mall). reviews can be trusted if you know how to read them and if you use other websites to get a more specific idea of what you'll get and customer service is really good.
one con though : very often, books are delivered damaged (because postal service is kind of garbage in my country:) and getting a refund is a bit annoying (you have to print out a piece of paper, stick it to the parcel...). but it works.

just NEVER buy 10 or 20 books at once, they will all be damaged because Amazon doesn't protective enough large cardboard boxes. no problem with smaller quantities.

the world has changed, probably not for the better as small business is slowly dying out but in this new desocialized world of business, Amazon is one of the best.

Flipkey

best rental agency so far !

pros : best price for value I know. as a traveller, you don't pay any commission and the total rent is always a little lower than other websites. apartment I stayed in are usually larger and I always had good contact with owners.
much more straightforward than other websites where you can't share any info before booking (because that's where they make money). some may say but I once used customer service and it worked perfectly.

I'm also a property owner and I'll try this website. of course you have pay 300 US dollars to be listed without any insurance it will work but if you know your math, it's still much less expensive than AirBnB (maybe the leader in this market now) where each owner has to pay 3% and each tenant 10 to 15%.

I'll come back as soon as I have some hindsight as a property owner so the 5 stars are only for travellers on this one. better than Roomorama and AirBnB and MUCH BETTER than HouseTrip !

Hostelworld

HostelWorld are LIARS !!!!!! REAL LIARS !!!!!

I'm both a property owner and a traveller.
and this website LIES, plain and simple !!

the website is renowned and works well bor obvious reasons but whyy such a prominent company should keep LYING ????

when you make a reservation, you have to pay a 1% service charge and a 10% Deposit / Downpayment in advance.
how low for a service charge when other companies make you pay 10 or 15%...
but there's something you don't know... roll of the drums... :

the down payment is... a service charge. it goes in the website's pocket (on top of the 1%), not into the property owner's pocket.

there's no problem there, it makes the total commission 11% which is sstill lower than what the competition offers. but why should they say it's a down payment when IT IS NOT ?

I asked the website once about this, and again they LIED !!!!!!
they told me that most guests know about this and it was never a problem before.
I asked several of my guests and... surprise, they thought this deposit/down payment was a... deposit / down payment.

so the bottom line is :
HOSTEL WORLD ARE A BUNCH OR LIARS.
not business lies like you're hiding the truth, you're making life look more beautiful than what it really is, you forget to talk about the dark side of things...
the business world is what it is, no problem.
but as you can see, Hostel World here is lying right in your face. they say white when the color is black, they say apples when you have oranges in your hand...

RED CARD for them !!!!

Airbnb

one of the best at first sight, one of the worst (and most expensive) in the long run.

It looks fantastic, it sounds fantastic, it is not fantastic.
As a property owner, it seems like AirBnB is trying to make me work as hard as I can to have a property listed on top. It makes me feel like an employee of the company. they're calling you all the time to tell you to update your calendar everyday, to answer all guests (even when the website is full of bugs that sometimes stop you from answering messages). Fair enough, more dedicated host will mean a better website for guests.
But remember that you all have to pay for the website (unless they make think the contrary). and at the end of the year, it's really a LOT of money. much more than on websites working on annual fees.

It starts to get ridiculous when :

You're asked to promote AirBnB on your personal blog to improve your ranking... And people actually do it !!! that's absolutely mad.
Of course, AirBnB is not paying you for this, it only increases your ranking for a certain amount of time.

AirBnB tries to make you think you belong to a community and that's it's so cool.
sure...
The idea behind AirBnB is to use the system created by CouchSurfing and to make people pay for it. smart move but that of course kills the community. So please stop lying, just accept we're all here for the money, not to meet strangers from everywhere and blablabla. For this, go to CouchSurfing and similar websites instead.

AirBnB is NOT cool so let's see yourself in the mirror !

Apart from that, always remember that from both ends (owners and guests), AirBnB is very expensive !!!
Up to 20% commission (+3% on the owners) when other websites are asking for nothing ! even some regular rental agencies (where the promotion and the answers to requests are all done by the rental agencies) are less expensive than this.

Final con : AirBnB promotes delation.
if you're trying to talk to someone out of the system, AirBnB is asking your correspondent to flag you so you can get kicked out of their website. It's understable but it also means that the AirBnB platform is not interesting enough to make you stay inside the system. Of course, getting guests outside the system is MUCH better (and many guests are asking for it so that they don't have to pay the big commission).

And a funny thing, the translation of the interface in various languages is full of non-sense and mix-ups (why do I see Russian for an ad in Venice ?).

Judy found this review useful